


Scarynoodles

by hopeomelette



Series: Fanganronpa Fics [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Comedy, Creepypasta, Danganronpa: Deep Despair, F/M, Fluff, Ghosts, Horror, I based this off of a tumblr post, M/M, Scary, for real this time y'all, hehe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeomelette/pseuds/hopeomelette
Summary: In which the cast of Danganronpa: Deep Despair come across an abandoned home, and choose to investigate... and run into some less than friendly residents of the home.
Relationships: Isogu Kita/Suna Isago, Kechibi Omororara/Hanamaru Koizumi, Mitsuharu Date/Asaka Fukuyo, Ryuuichi Hanabi/Yosuke Karasu
Series: Fanganronpa Fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582846
Kudos: 7





	1. Viewer Beware, You're In For A Scare

**Author's Note:**

> Ayy, we're doing this for real this time! And yes I know that not everyone shows up at first - trust me, they will, it'd just be too chaotic with four couples to deal with in this one house lmao

It’s a normal Friday evening, where six students of Hope’s Peak Academy were walking to their respective homes from school together as a group. Ryuuichi Hanabi, Yosuke Karasu, Mitsuharu Date, Asaka Fukuyo, Isogu Kita, and Suna Isago. As the most active members of their class, they had stayed a bit late to finish working on a project together - Isogu and Ryuuichi protested, but Suna and Yosuke respectively silenced them - and were only just now returning in the evening. As such, it had gotten rather dark, but on their way here, they had noticed that a light was on in a house that was normally generally accepted as abandoned.

“Hey, that house is usually abandoned, isn’t it?” Ryuuichi had brought up, interrupting Isogu and Suna having a whispered debate about whether or not Isogu should do his homework.

“...Yes, it is.” Asaka slowed to a stop in front of the house, glancing towards it slowly with a slightly curious expression. As such, the others stopped too, looking towards the house as well.

It was a simple home, which is rather odd to find in the middle of the area where they were, but it had just always been here. A simple yet surprisingly expansive two-story house, with a large entryway and multiple windows, most of them broken in some fashion. Certainly old and decrepit, and definitely not having a resident, and yet for the first time since they had been attending Hope’s Peak, the house had a slight glow coming from within one of the rooms. 

“I wanna go look at it.” Ryuuichi goes up to the gate and peers in curiously. 

“Absolutely not. That’s breaking and entering,” Mitsuharu chimes in, going to grab Ryuuichi by the hood of his jacket and pull him backwards.

“I am a bit curious myself…” Asaka mumbles over the loud “ACK-“ of protest from Ryuuichi being dragged backwards.

Suna’s attention is drawn away from Isogu finally, and she puts a finger on her chin. “Date, this house is clearly abandoned and decrepit, right? So what if that’s someone breaking and entering? Shouldn’t we investigate?”

Mitsuharu grumbles a little bit as he releases Ryuuichi, frowning at the house. “I suppose…”

“Or, maybe, it’s a homeless individual seeking refuge for the night,” Yosuke offers with a shrug. 

“Yes! Those! All valid reasons to go in and we should definitely look around for safety’s sake. You know, maybe offer help, or report it to the authorities afterwards.” Ryuuichi grins cheekily, pointing at the house. “We should go!”

While Mitsuharu hesitates, squinting at the house with a cautious expression, Suna nods. Isogu just stretches his arms, looking bored. “I don’t particularly care, I’ll just do whatever Suna does.”

“Unsurprising,” Yosuke deadpans. Isogu doesn’t care.

“Well…” Mitsuharu starts, but then trails off, and runs a hand through his hair as he thinks more.

“You wanna come with us too, right Yosuke~?” Ryuuichi asks.

Yosuke just grimaces, and shakes his head. “It will no doubt be covered in dust, dirt, and other various germs that you find in abandoned homes.”

“So long as we do not touch anything, we should be fine in those regards as well…” Remi says softly.

Ryuuichi nods, and then puts on a pleading face. “Plus, you know that we’ll be safer with you around, in case someone there tries to hurt us and you can help…! Pleeeeaaase~?”

After a moment of hesitation, Yosuke groans in annoyance and rolls his eye. “Fine. But if I get even a speck of dust on me, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

This earns a distant slight chuckle from Mitsuharu, which is met with Ryuuichi lightly punching his arm as he smiles at Yosuke, saying "Okay!" Mitsuharu grumbles, rubbing his arm.

Yosuke rolls his eye again. “Just like you to take a joke seriously…”

Ryuuichi winks at him in reply. He then turns away from Yosuke and heads over to the main gate of the house, and looks for how to open it. Suna pipes up, saying, "Be careful that you don't break anything, Ryuuichi."

Ryuuichi nods, and carefully pushes the gate open, so that they can all fit through and 

walk up to the house. Ryuuichi and Mitsuharu take the lead at first, but Suna ends up swerving around in front of them, so the three of them both make it to the front door first. Suna knocks.

No response.

"Well, if there is someone in there, they are either unconscious or unwelcoming..." Remi says from behind the group.

"Try the doorknob." Yosuke suggests.

Mitsuharu tries the doorknob. The door is unlocked.

Without much hesitation, both Suna and Ryuuichi step forward, Suna managing to get in front of him and they both enter the house. Mitsuharu sighs exasperatedly and follows, and their respective significant others all exchange amused glances before following after them.

The main foyer is illuminated mostly by the moonlight from outside, broken darkened windows creating jagged shadows that stretch across the floor. There’s a thin layer of dust on the wooden floors, which creak at even Suna’s small weight as she steps into the house first. A decrepit set of stairs spiral upwards in front of them, and on either side of the foyer are two entryways into different rooms. Both rooms are too dark to see in at the moment. As the others file into the foyer behind Suna, there’s a quiet tension to all of them, breaths being held as they look around...

“Spooky!” Ryuuichi’s cheerful voice immediately breaks the tension, echoing around them briefly.

Suna definitely didn’t jump a bit, and turns around to squint at him. “Don’t be so loud.”

“Why? It’s not like we have to sneak around and whisper because there’s an evil ghost or something.” 

“Still, you’re disturbing my thinking!” She huffs and sticks her nose up slightly before turning around, looking between the rooms and the stairs. “It is too dark to see what else is around here.”

“Shit, you’re right… guess we gotta turn back,” Isogu says hopefully.

He’s met with Mitsuharu and Suna getting out their phones and using the flashlights on them to shine them into the two side rooms. Yosuke shrugs at him. “You tried.”

Isogu sighs, and goes to stand by Suna again. Suna is currently shining her flashlight into a dining room, a dusty wooden table with abandoned silverware placed on it. The table looks shifted aside, as if something had heavily bumped into it. Beyond the dining room, they could see another door.

Meanwhile, Mitsuharu had shifted to look at the other room, which looked like a normal living room. The furniture was all shifted around as well, dust showing that the couch, table, chairs, and broken television had all been shifted out of their original places by something or other. Odd, but not too odd. Asaka starts to step into the room, glancing around with a small bit of curiosity in her eyes.

Ryuuichi watches as the two of them split up into those rooms, and gives Yosuke an exasperated glance before speaking up. “Uh, are you four really just going to split up like that?”

Yosuke chimes in as well. “This isn’t some sort of horror movie setting where we all need to split up and look for clues.”

Suna just straight up doesn’t listen, walking further into the dining room with Isogu helplessly trailing behind her. Mitsuharu turns his head, keeping the light in the living room for Asaka to see, who had paused in her search. “Well, you’ve already lost Suna. We might as well just cover more ground like this, and by virtue of it not being a horror movie, it’s not like we’re gonna get jumped individually.” He shrugs, and Asaka nods.

Ryuuichi and Yosuke both exchange a glance, before Ryuuichi just shrugs helplessly. Can’t argue with that.

“You can take the upstairs, yeah? Looks like we’ve got downstairs covered,” Mitsuharu continues.

“I mean, I guess.” Ryuuichi walks over to try and step on the first stair, and it holds steady. “As long as this doesn’t fall apart on us.”

“Looks steady to me.” With one last thumbs up, Mitsuharu struts off into the living room further. Ryuuichi is left to look at Yosuke… who is deadpanning at him. Ryuuichi just gives him a sheepish smile.

And thus, the three couples are split apart…

* * *

Suna steps confidently through the dining room, using her flashlight to shine the way as she moves through. Isogu quickly catches up to her, standing at her side. “Yo, the others are gone.”

“Yes, I noticed. They can investigate where they want, but I know what I’m doing.” Suna’s confidence is clear through her tone as well. She notices that there look to be a large number of shapes left in the dust on the floor - strangely shaped footprints, she supposes. After all, she can’t really tell what they look like because there’s so many. She frowns and shines the light down on them.

Isogu almost just walks past them, but looks down, and his eye twitches. “So dusty…”

Suna pats his arm with her unoccupied hand. “I know you wanna clean it, but we don’t have time to go run and get your cleaning supplies.”

“But I’m a sprinter…” Isogu whines. “Just the mop bucket, at least…?”

“No.”

“Uggghhhhhh…” Isogu pulls his feather duster out of the back of his hood instead, and idly dusts along the dining table instead.

“Anyway, these footprints are weird. Maybe there are a bunch of homeless people living here.” She shines her flashlight onto the table, before moving on to the door at the far end of the room.

Isogu angrily dusts off the entire table before joining her. “Were you saying something?”

She giggles at him. “Nothing important. Let’s keep moving.”

Suna opens the door, and with an unhealthy creak, it swings open. The doors in this place are all wide and tall, making for an amusing image of tiny Suna strutting through confidently for Isogu, but it certainly doesn’t stop them. This next room is about what you would expect - a nice, big, decrepit kitchen. And, wouldn’t you know it - it’s where the light they saw was coming from! On the counter, there is a small reading lamp, plugged into the wall where an appliance would normally be. It flickers on occasion, the bulb clearly near the end of its days.

“Aha!” Suna puts her head up triumphantly, stomping over to the lamp. “This is what was causing that light we saw. And now, whoever was using it is gone!”

“...Huh.” Isogu looks impressed.

“Probably because Ryuuichi scared them off,” she adds with a huff.

“I guess. That’s a good thing though, right? We don’t need to be running into random adults.”

“I suppose not.”

“And wasn’t that the whole point-”

Suna huffs, and reaches forward to unplug the lamp. Before she can, though…

With a loud POP noise, the bulb in the lamp bursts. Suna squeaks and flinches back, which Isogu jumps a bit and mutters “Shit-” as it goes out. 

“St-Stupid jumpscares…” Suna frowns deeply, and crosses her arms, glaring at the lamp. As if it’s the lamp’s fault that she was scared.

“You okay?” Isogu asks concernedly.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She sounds a bit salty. “So much for that light. It was dying anyway.” All the same, Suna carefully reaches forward again and unplugs the lamp for real this time. “I’m surprised this place still has power, though.”

“Yeah that’s weird…” Isogu moves over to the lightswitch, and thoroughly dusts it off, before flipping it. The light remains off in the kitchen, though. “And that’s fucking annoying.”

“Hmph.” Suna stands up straight again and brushes herself off from all of the dust. “At least we know that this is where the light was coming from. I bet that’s more than the others will find!”

“Fuck yeah!” Isogu says cheerily, while going off to continue dusting the kitchen.

Suna giggles at him, and moves to wrap her arm around his waist while he dusts. He smiles down at her for a moment, before continuing. “We’re the best for this kind of job, anyway,” Suna proclaims triumphantly. “A president is good for leading exploration, and you’re good for cleaning up wherever we go to find clues.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He dusts off a cabinet, opening it up to look inside as he does so. “Like this- I gotta clean in every nook and cranny, so I gotta find shit in every nook and cranny.” Dusting continues. Isogu is also, luckily, too focused on dusting to realize that one of the people in their group is a bounty hunter and thus the best suited for all of this anyway.

“Exactly.”

“So who do you think…” Isogu trails off as he sticks his tongue out in concentration, getting more focused on moving along the counter to dust it.

Suna giggles, getting pulled along since she keeps her arm around him. “Who do I think is staying here? Probably just some homeless person, that went off so they didn’t get in trouble.” She shakes her head a little bit. “We would have been happy to help instead.”

Isogu remains absentmindedly dusting, and Suna just smiles happily and leans into him as he does so, looking around a bit. There was a faint thumping noise, but Suna just presumed that it was Ryuuichi upstairs doing something.

...Little did they know,  _ something _ was now barreling towards them...

* * *

Ryuuichi’s sheepish smile does get Yosuke to roll his eye and loosen up a little bit, and he sighs. “Well, go on and lead the way.”

With a nod, Ryuuichi hops up to the next step, and then the next, carefully going up by slowly distributing his weight onto the steps as he goes. As he goes up, he pulls out his own phone, shining the flashlight up the stairs as he goes. Yosuke slowly follows, stepping where Ryuuichi does and just as carefully with his boots. Upstairs, there looks to just be one hallway to go down, which Ryuuichi shines the light down. Three doors, only one of them open. “Hmm, three doors to pick from,” Ryuuichi muses as Yosuke catches up to him.

“You’re the one leading the adventure, princey. You pick.” Yosuke, upon coming back to his side, elbows him a little as he speaks.

Ryuuichi huffs a little at being elbowed, but he can’t hide his grin. “Princey, hm? Want me to be your brave prince in the scary abandoned house, Yosuke dearest~?” he teases.

He’s met with another elbow into his side. “Just get moving so we can go home.”

“Ow- Fine, fine. Keep your eye out, Suna’ll want a detailed report of all of the dust we find.” Ryuuichi heads over to the first door while Yosuke snorts and follows. The first door he comes across is, interestingly enough, locked. “I’m not gonna go breaking down doors, so.” He moves on to the next closed one - unlocked! So he walks in.

It’s rather easy to tell the moment they walk in that the room is a bedroom, from the bed against the wall that catches their attention right away. It’s dusty and abandoned, much like everything else. There seems to be some parts on the bed where the dust has been disturbed… yet the sheets themselves look mostly untouched aside from some crumpling where the dust is gone.

Ryuuichi glances around, before resting his hands on his hips. “A boring bedroom.”

Yosuke steps forward after him to the bed. There’s a slight grimace that pulls at his lips as he reaches for the sheets, running a gloved hand along where the dust was unsettled. “Something has been here, that is for certain.” He quickly retracted his hand and reached into his coat for cloth to clean off his glove.

“Interesting… so my bluffing paid off, I see…” the actor murmurs thoughtfully.

“Bluffing?”

Ryuuichi smiles sheepishly again. “What, you didn’t think that I was actually wanting to look around for safety’s sake?”

“Well, no. You clearly just wanted to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong for adventure’s sake.” Yosuke deadpans at him.

“...Sorta yeah! Though it’s more like-” He kicks at the floor a little, dust shifting around his sneaker. “I was thinking that even something like wandering around a clearly empty house for a bit would be fun, something to take our minds off of school before we all went our separate ways.”

Yosuke blinks. “You were  _ that  _ bored by the project? What, did you put a light in here to catch our attention on purpose?”

“Yeah, but- wait no, I didn’t put the light in here,  _ that  _ I actually don’t know what it was. And the project, it was fine, it was just-” Ryuu stumbles at that, and pouts due to Yosuke catching him off guard. “I just wanted to do something fun for a few minutes. Good inspiration for storytelling, you know!”

“So Ayasato put you up to this.”

Ryuuichi opens his mouth to retort, but alas, he has none. Yosuke rolls his eye, taking that as a yes - Keisuke was someone they were both familiar with by now, and of course he would badger Ryuuichi into exploring some random house for play ideas. “Okay fine, he did mention it. But I sure as hell wasn’t going in here alone, so I just dragged you guys with me!”

Yosuke rolls his eye again. “You could have just asked Date and Fukutai directly.”

Ryuuichi slides over slyly, coming closer to him with a big grin. “But then I wouldn’t have you~”

“...So adventure, with a side of flirting with me.” Yosuke raises an eyebrow with a small smirk. “I am less surprised by this now.”

Ryuuichi gasps dramatically, putting a hand on his chest. “No, don’t tell me… I’m becoming… predictable…?!”

Yosuke snorts and moves to pat his head, making him freeze in his dramatics and get a small smile on his face. “Not too predictable, but you’re always so cheesy.”

Ryuuichi opens his mouth to reply…

...but a loud SLAM cuts both of them off - a scampering noise accompanying it, as the door to the bedroom is slammed shut with them inside.

“EEK-” Ryuuichi, instead of shining his phone’s flashlight in the direction of the door, scrambles forward and immediately clings to Yosuke, his somewhat pathetic squeak of surprise subsiding quickly when he ducks his head and shoves his face into Yosuke’s chest.

Yosuke, meanwhile, had just turned his head to look at the door in bewilderment- up until his boyfriend came and clung to him. He almost stumbles back in surprise from the force that Ryuuichi used to cling to him, but he maintains his balance. After a second, he looked down at him and did his best not to smile. “Ryuuichi.” He pokes at the purple-and-black hoodie.

“...” After a second, Ryuuichi keeps clinging to him, but looks up at him with a lopsided smile. “Uh, sorry. Caught me off guard.”

“It’s fine.” Yosuke pokes him again, while tilting his head in the direction of the door. “Though I think that was a bit of an overreaction.”

“...I know that! I’m fine!” Ryuuichi lets go of him as quickly as he clung to him, though he does stay right next to him. His face does indeed show no sign of how startled he had been mere moments before, instead being one of determination. “What made the door shut like that, though?”

“A draft, perhaps?” Yosuke walks over to the door, Ryuuichi trailing close behind him. Luckily Ryuuichi was still being a good flashlight, so Yosuke reaches forward and opens it. It opens easily, with a creak, and there’s nothing there. “Nothing here.”

“But I heard like a scratching noise on the wood…” Ryuuichi notes, looking over Yosuke’s shoulder. Or rather, resting his head on Yosuke’s shoulder to look over it.

“I heard that as well, yes. Perhaps a rat of some sort has made residence in the wood, or in the other rooms.” Yosuke frowns in thought, absentmindedly bringing up his hand to pat Ryuuichi’s head again. Ryuuichi clearly stops listening, smiling contently. “If so, then that doesn’t really explain the light in the house - which was downstairs anyway, so perhaps there are multiple residents… perhaps the disturbance of furniture is a result of pests, and the light is a result of a person who is likely gone by this point.”

“Mmmhm…” Ryuuichi replies, absolutely not paying attention.

“So, if we are to continue on, we should keep an eye out for rats or other small animals like raccoons, or possums, or…” Yosuke trails off and looks over to Ryuuichi, finally noticing his expression. He rolls his eye and flicks him on the forehead, ceasing the headpats, getting him to snap out of it.

“Uweh- Uh- Right!” Ryuuichi straightens up. “Raccoons! Like Rusty! Yeah.”

“I swear…” Yosuke sighs with a smile, and starts to walk out of the room…

...and that’s when they heard the scream.

* * *

Asaka slowly moves through the living area, stepping around the disheveled furniture. The couch had a bit of dust that had been disturbed, but otherwise there was a thin layer of dust on everything, which is to be expected. Mitsuharu is being a good flashlight holder, following behind Asaka carefully with a sharp gaze darting around for any danger.

“You do not have to be so vigilant, you know.” Asaka notes as she’s still looking around.

Mitsuharu blinks for a moment, wondering how she could tell that he was being extra vigilant, but she knows him really well by now. He sighs, and his shoulders lower a bit. “I still wanna be careful. I know the others can defend themselves just fine, but we don’t really know what we’re dealing with. Hell, what if this is someone’s house that they’re still living in?”

“...Then they should really dust more.” Asaka’s nose wrinkles as she drags a finger across the arm of a chair, dust sticking to her finger before she brushes it off onto her dress.

Mitsuharu snorts amusedly. “Fair. Still, I’m just keeping an eye out.”

“Fair enough…” She continues on through the room, examining the television this time. Mitsuharu walks over, and moves his phone near the TV so they could see into it better…

...and as soon as he does so, about a dozen spiders scamper around within, hiding from the sudden light. “EEEEHEHEWWWWWW-” Mitsuharu squeals like a little girl, jerking his hand back and dropping his phone while he’s at it.

“...” Asaka bends down to pick up his phone while Mitsuharu backs up all the way near the entrance to the foyer, before turning to look back at him in a deadpan.

“U-Um… s-sorry.” Mitsuharu clears his throat and approaches again.

“It is fine… I know you do not do well with spiders.” She hands his phone back to him, and he takes it back with a sheepish smile. She then turns back to the TV, and since there only seem to be spiders to find, she continues onward. 

There’s a doorway at the far end of the living room, so Asaka leads the way while Mitsuharu slowly follows, a bit more shaky but still fine enough now that he’s away from the TV. Opening the door and shining the light inside reveals a back entryway to the house, the large door to the backyard wide open, and warped slightly. Mitsuharu approaches it first, leaving the rest of the room awash in darkness. “A backyard, huh?”

“Mhm…” Asaka moves over to the door as well, and runs her hand along it carefully. Mitsuharu follows her hand with the light, revealing that at about the height of their heads, there is a cracked dent in the wood. Clearly having been the cause of the warped shape of the door.

“Someone hit the door…?” Mitsuharu deduces. “They must have busted into the house from the back, then. And given the force, it would have been with their shoulder or arm, so we’re dealing with someone strong, and pretty damn tall.”

Asaka nods silently, moving away from the door and closing it. “We can look in the backyard momentarily… what else is here?”

Mitsuharu moves to her side, carefully tangling his hand in hers as he shifts the light around the room. A small smile lights up her expression. The room seems almost beat up… a small table broken by some unknown force, a shoe shelf knocked over and empty, a tatami torn up and muddied by an indescribable amount of footprints or different shapes. Almost inhuman, Mitsuharu thinks. 

“This place looks much more disturbed than the rest of the house…” Asaka murmurs softly.

“Odd, right? You would think that once they broke in, they would be more careful.” 

Asaka squeezes his hand, glancing over to him. “Do you think whoever is here would be violent with us, then…?”

Mitsuharu squeezes her hand back carefully, giving her a reassuring smile. “I won’t let them be, Asa. The others and I will make sure that everything’s okay.”

She nods, her smile widening very slightly. Mitsuharu chuckles happily at her smile, temporarily placing his phone in his pocket - camera end sticking out, so there is still light in the room - and puts his other hand on top of her head, patting her hair softly. She reddens very slightly, her smile turning into one of contentment at the comforting headpats. “What are you doing that for…?”

He smiles wider himself. “I just like seeing your smile,” he admits with a bit of a goofy tone. “Is that so bad?”

Asaka rolls her eyes a little, moving up her free hand to put it on top of Mitsuharu’s. “No… but it is if you aren’t paying attention.” She then pulls his hand away from her head, a bit of a mischievous look dancing in her eyes, clear to Mitsuharu even in the dark.

“Aww, boo…” Mitsuharu puffs out his cheeks. “I can keep holding your hand though, right?”

“...Okay.”

Mitsuharu giggles happily, and then freezes.

A couple moments after he does, a thud sounds from somewhere in the room. To the right. Mitsuharu steps in front of Asaka protectively immediately, keeping both hands free and relying on his pocket phone to light up enough of the room. The thud sounded from a door that they had yet to notice, slightly open and pitch black within the smaller room. More thuds follow, something clumsily moving within the room…

“Hey. Show yourself!” Mitsuharu speaks sharply, but not loudly, for Asaka’s sake. Asaka had let go of his hand by now, stepping back near the back door just in case.

The response that they get from the room… is inhuman. A guttural whine, too hoarse and deep to have come from any normal person’s throat. Mitsuharu’s face flickers with confusion, and he starts to slowly move towards the room.

...And then the dark, amorphous shape, much taller than the both of them, bursts out of the door with another horrible whine, crashing right towards Asaka.


	2. Monsters Revealed and New Friends Too

Mitsuharu regretted not having his flashlight in hand, because with the darkness - and thanks to the fact that this was the back of the house, and the door was closed - he had no idea what the hell just burst out from the door in front of him. 

A loud thundering noise accompanies the form as it bursts out from the door, dark and absolutely not human in the slightest. It was too long, too tall, too loud to just be one person. The thundering noise is coming from its footsteps, Mitsuharu notes with horror - this thing is heavy set, and likely very strong just by nature of being bigger than them. The whine that rose from the creature was a sound that he might have heard before, but he couldn’t place it just due to the fact that it was so utterly disturbing to hear. High pitched, yet clearly from the throat of a large creature to give it a low, guttural origin. Mitsuharu tries to get a good look at what it is before acting, but the moment that he notices where it’s going, his panic sets in.

Asaka stares, wide-eyed as the shape charges towards her at a surprising speed.

“ASA!” Mitsuharu immediately yells, and leaps towards the back of whatever this is. 

He manages to get a grip on what seems to be its leg, its other three legs scrambling as Mitsuharu trips it up. With another strange whining noise, the shape rears up onto its hind legs and shakes off Mitsuharu’s grip with a scary amount of strength - Mitsuharu lets go on purpose, even, as to not be hit by the leg when it shakes him off. Asaka is saved, though - but, whatever had burst from the door had skidded clumsily and was now running off towards a different door.

...A door to the left side of the house. 

Suna and Isogu on the other side hear Mitsuharu yelling, and both jump. “What the fuck-” Isogu stutters, feather duster clattering to the floor.

Suna looks over to the door, and immediately starts to storm over to it.

And then the creature bursts through the door, a sickening crack accompanying the door being bent inwards from the impact.

“AAAAAAAH!” Suna screams, stumbling backwards and away from the dark mass. Having been caught off guard, her phone remains in her hand facing downward, not pointing towards the creature that is much bigger to her than it was for Mitsuharu and Asaka.

Isogu lets out a yelp of surprise of his own, and then his eyes widen as he sees Suna right in the way of the creature. Without thinking, he sprints forward. Right at it. Shoulder bared towards it, he shoves Suna out of the way with one arm and heads right for the thing.

Unfortunately for Isogu, he is a noodle man, and this creature was headed full speed towards the two of them. His sprint gets a hit on the creature, but the creature is hardly stopped - rather, it’s more like Isogu is stopped, his shoulder hitting painfully against the surprisingly firm body of this thing. “Ngh-!” He staggers back as the creature skids to a halt, a startled whine escaping it. While he did try to maintain his balance, he ultimately fell over hard while holding onto his shoulder. The creature makes a few hard noises against the wood as it stays in one place, loud and deep huffs of air escaping from it in an almost gasping manner. 

“I-Isogu-!” Suna yells out and quickly crawls over to him, which seems to startle the creature even more. With another guttural whine, the creature thunders off towards the dining room.

“Hey…!” Mitsuharu and Asaka stumble through the doorway and into the kitchen, quickly coming to their sides and kneeling down next to them. “Are you two okay?!”

“N-Nnhh…!” Isogu lifts his head from the floor, one eye closed as he grimaces in pain. “Wh… What the fuck  _ w-was _ that?!”

“Did you two see it…?” Suna wheezes, wrapping her arms around Isogu’s waist protectively. 

Asaka looks a bit shaken, but generally she’s the calmest of the four. “I did not get a good look at it… it was some sort of monstrous creature…”

“Are you guys okay?!” Ryuuichi’s voice yells from across the house. 

“Yes, but come here! Quick!” Mitsuharu yells back. More thudding noises can be heard, as Ryuuichi and Yosuke presumably run down the stairs and through the house, shortly skidding into the kitchen once they make it downstairs.

Suna whines slightly as she looks up at Isogu. “Are you sure you’re okay? I-It hit you!”

“I’m f-fine…” Isogu says weakly, clearly not being fine. Suna lets go of him, looking over him concernedly.

“Why don’t you people start explaining while I work on this?” Yosuke steps forward calmly, kneeling next to Isogu and quickly examining his injuries. Ryuuichi just looks between the other three, wide-eyed.

“Well, I’ll start…” Mitsuharu runs a hand through his hair, settling back on the floor with a sigh. “Asa and I were exploring in that room over there-” He points to where the door was nearly torn off of its hinges, a dent made in the wood. “-when… something burst out of a closet in there, and ran at us.”

“Something?” Ryuuichi presses, leaning forward. “Was it a person?”

Asaka chimes in now, slowly shaking her head. “I saw it coming towards me, it was… much too tall and wide… it might have been around your height, Ryuuichi, but it was strangely shaped.”

“I tried grabbing it, because it was running right at Asa. I think I got a hold of its leg? It was skinny, and stiff, not like a person at all.” Mitsuharu grimaces, and looks at his hand. There was some dirt that had rubbed off onto his glove, which he dusts off. “Whatever it was, it was dirty too.”

“That’s when it came running at us, right?” Suna speaks up.

Mitsuharu nods. “It burst through that door- so, whatever it is, it’s strong, too.”

“Fucking ow-!” Isogu’s yelp cuts them all off, showing that Yosuke had pressed down on his shoulder. 

His response makes Yosuke grimace slightly. “And how did your shoulder end up messed up like this, hm?”

“Well uh…” Isogu looks aside. “When it came running in, I didn’t really think cuz I just saw it running at Suna, so… I ran at it, and tried to shove it away before it could hit her.”

Yosuke presses on a different part of his shoulder, getting Isogu to wince again. “And you hit it with your shoulder? How on Earth did you get this hurt from it?”

“Dude, it felt like running into a fucking wall…” Isogu groans. “And I should know, I’ve done that a fuckton-”

“It was running at us pretty fast,” Suna adds. “Isogu did manage to stop it, though, and when I yelled, it got startled and ran off.”

Ryuuichi looks completely bewildered by all of this, jaw hanging open. “...So there’s like a monster in here.”

“I guess?” Mitsuharu growls a bit in annoyance as he pulls himself to his feet. “It’s gone for the moment, at least, but I’m having trouble believing that it’s some kind of monster. Maybe some homeless person set up a trap, or has a costume or something.”

“So… like Scooby Doo?” Ryuuichi offers.

Asaka nods. “This does sound like something from those Scooby Doo shows we watched…” 

Yosuke groans a bit. “I would rather not think of this as a ridiculous children’s cartoon storyline. Whatever it is, it caused one of us to be injured.” Yosuke had shoved Isogu’s hoodie slightly down his arm, and is now applying some kind of gel to his shoulder under his shirt carefully, and a bandage - he’d probably do more, but he doesn’t have his suitcase on him.

“You’re just salty that I dragged you to watch it with me and Asaka-”

“Unimportant,” Mitsuharu cuts Ryuuichi’s retort off. “What matters right now is that we make sure we don’t get hurt again, and that we find whatever this is and get it to stop.”

“Works for me,” Suna speaks up once more, getting to her feet and brushing off her uniform from all of the dust. “No one hurts my Isogu and gets away with it.”

Isogu blushes from where he still sits on the floor, but is interrupted from any response when Yosuke pulls his hoodie sleeve back on properly and stands up as well, cleaning off his gloves. “There, you should be fine. It’ll just be bruised for a bit, but in a couple days you won’t have to worry about it. Don’t move it if you can help it.”

“Alright. Thanks Yosuke.” Isogu uses his other arm to push himself to his feet too, and then immediately grimaces… but it doesn’t seem to be from pain, as he stumbles over to where his feather duster had clattered onto the floor and starts furiously dusting himself off with his other arm.

“Now, moving forward. What are we supposed to do now?” Yosuke asks.

Suna steps forward, putting her fists on her hips proudly and looking up at all of them. “I propose that we continue our investigation of the house. Leaving any stone unturned for when we eventually report this to the authorities is unacceptable!”

“...I mean yeah.” Mitsuharu runs a hand through his hair again, sighing. “Where do we need to look?”

“There’s one more room upstairs,” Yosuke says.

“There’s the closet that the creature first came out of, and the backyard…” Asaka adds, looking in the direction of the back door.

“Alright!’ Suna punches her fist into her other hand, smirking confidently. “Isogu and I will-”

“Actually-” Yosuke interrupts. “I would like to accompany Kita on whatever investigation we go on, and in the least perilous location given his injuries. I won’t be having him pulling another stunt like running into a monster.”

Suna deflates a little at her thunder being stolen, but she nods, and continues on like a champ. “That works. Alright, Yosuke and Isogu get to… continue the investigation of the upstairs. Meanwhile, Ryuuichi and Asaka will take the closet where the monster came from, and Date and I will take the outside backyard.”

A chorus of nods from the others meet Suna’s words, satisfied with her organization of the continued investigation.

…Except for one. Ryuuichi, who is absentmindedly playing on his phone, rapidly typing.

“Brother.” Mitsuharu punches his arm. “What are you doing.”

Ryuuichi jumps, and then looks between all of them looking… suspicious. “Texting.”

“...Texting who?” Asaka asks.

“Keisuke, just to, tell him, stuff.” Ryuuichi says with a nod. They know him well enough by now to tell that those brief pauses between words speak much louder than what he’s actually saying - he’s lying.

Meanwhile, Yosuke peeks over his shoulder while he’s distracted answering Asaka, and then his jaw drops, eye widening. “...What the hell did you text  _ him  _ for?!”

* * *

“But ZuZuuuuu…! I don’t wannaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

Kechibi Omororara was currently spinning around in an office chair, attempting to do anything but face towards the actual desk that his work was on. The same project that the other six had been working on at school, actually, but he was part of his own group with a few of the other students. Kosei was the appointed leader of their group, which meant “Do your shitty work or I’ll kick your ass” was the policy, which Kechibi was NOT having a good time with. Earlier, he had been texting with Ethan, complaining about the work that he needed to do - though he got called a "weak warrior" of homework and was told to go bother someone else since he was in the middle of training (read: gaming). Thus, spinning his chair was time better spent.

Until, of course, a hand catches the back of it and shoves him back into the nook of the desk.

“You have to! Everyone else in our group is finished, Kechi, you can’t just skip out on this last part.” Hanamaru Koizumi was the one who was shoving him to go work, looking down at him with a slight pout.

“But ZuZuuuuuuuuuu…!!!”

“No buts!”

Kechibi whines again, leaning his head backwards so he can look up at her at an upside-down angle. “If I get somma’ this done right now, can I just finish the rest in the morning?”

“Why are you so against doing work now…?” Hanamaru continues her slight pout as she looks down at him.

“‘Cuz I just wanna spend time with you~” Kechibi speaks with a goofy grin now, reaching up with his hands. Looks like he’s gonna try and wrap his arms around Hanamaru from his angle, which… doesn’t work, considering she just grabs onto his wrists.

“Kechiiii…” She sighs a little, exasperatedly, holding him in place so he doesn’t keep moving. “You should know by now that your cheesy lines will not work on me if you’re trying to get out of homework...”

“Damn. Thought it woulda worked this time, but nah.” 

Hanamaru pushes his hands forward, so that they land on the desk in front of him. “Get a good amount done… and then  _ maybe  _ we can watch a movie or something for the rest of the night.” 

“And uh… cuddle?” Kechibi asks hopefully.

Hanamaru’s cheeks are dusted with a bit of pink. “Yes, we can cuddle…”

“Can’t say no to that, then.” Kechibi puffs his cheeks out, but begrudgingly tilts his head forward and gets back to writing. 

Hanamaru giggles and remains behind his chair for a minute, watching him write. He does actually look to be working diligently now, so she gives him a headpat of finality before going to flop down on the couch. Egg, their fluffy white cat - who, by now had grown from when she was a little kitten and was as big as an adult - leaps up onto the couch and curls up on her stomach, purring.

Buzz.

Kechibi does his best to ignore his phone buzzing. Hanamaru is right there after all, she’d be able to see him moving to check his phone. Scribble scribble, working on this boring ass project…

His phone buzzes again. And again. Who the hell would be texting him at this hour anyway? Could it be important?

Egg’s purring deepens as Hanamaru lifts her up in her arms, cooing at her. Kechibi spares a glance back… coast’s clear. He’ll give Egg some salami later (a little, as a treat) as thanks for being a distraction. Phone time!

_ hanabidragon: kecibi _

_ hanabidragon: keCHIBI _

_ hanabidragon: DUDE YOU HAVE TO COME HERE SUNA IS MAKING BAD DECISIONS AND YOU’RE BETTER ON THE STREETS AND ALL THAT HELP _

_ hanabidragon: I DONT WANNA DIE HERE BRO ITS SCARY AS FUCK _

...What the fuck?

Kechibi glances back at Hanamaru again. She’s swinging Egg through the air gently, and Egg is mewling as she sticks her front paws out in front of her, as if she’s flying. Adorable, and Kechibi would normally join in, but at least she’s still distracted. For now. Kechibi quickly types in a response.

_ TotalKOchibi: bruh _

_ hanabidragon: oh thank god youre online _

_ hanabidragon: dude we’re in this scary abandoned house, yknow the one thats on our way back from school _

_ hanabidragon: there’s a monster here that attacked isogu and it’s scary and the house is scary and wah kechibi help us _

_ TotalKOchibi: ………bruh????? _

“Kechi?”

“WAAAGH I WASN’T LOOKIN’ AT MY PHONE-” Kechibi drops his phone onto his lap as Hanamaru’s voice sounds from right behind his head.

“...I already saw that you were looking at it…” Egg meows after she speaks, as if to confirm that she also saw that he was looking at it.

“W-Well like-”

“It’s fine, I heard how many notifications you were getting… what’s wrong?” Luckily for Kechibi, she doesn’t actually sound mad, holding Egg carefully as she looks over his shoulder to his phone.

He exhales in relief and picks up his phone, showing her the chat he’s had with Ryuuichi. “Ryuu said that they was at that old abandoned house, and that Isogu got attacked by something…”

More notifications flood in from Ryuuichi, explaining in better detail what happened, and what exactly he meant by “monster” - describing the few details that they did know, anyway. Hanamaru and Kechibi watch concernedly, and exchange glances every so often. “Should we… go help?” Hanamaru asks.

“I think so, yeah!” Kechibi quickly stands up, going to grab his hoodie and everything else that he needed to leave.

Hanamaru glances at Kechibi’s very unfinished homework slowly, and sighs, before shaking her head and going to put Egg down on the couch. “Okay Egg,” she begins, gently poking her kitty nose with her finger. “Kechi and I are gonna go help the others, okay? You remember Ryuu.” Egg mews. Of course she remembers Ryuuichi, Egg is the only cat that likes Ryuuichi and as such Ryuuichi likes her back. “We’ll be back soon… Make sure you behave.”

“Shit-” There’s a thud in the distance as Kechibi falls over while trying to balance on one foot while putting his shoes on.

“...” Hanamaru gives Egg a pat on the head, before going to help Kechibi stand back up.

“Eheh, thanks ZuZu…” Kechibi says sheepishly as he gets to his feet, smiling at her.

She pauses for a moment, baffled by the disaster man before her, but an amused sigh escapes her nonetheless. “It’s okay Kechi. You ready?”

“Uhhhhh… Oh! One last thing!” He quickly leans down and gives her a kiss on the cheek, and then pulls back with a giggle. “Now I’m good!”

Hanamaru immediately gets flustered, moving to poke Kechibi in the cheek teasingly. “Hmph! Let’s go then.” Lowering her head a little so her hair hides her blush, she grabs her keys and heads out the door quickly, Kechibi following swiftly with a bounce in his step. ...And leaving the homework abandoned and unfinished.

* * *

Before, the house was deathly silent, even with the conversations among the couples before. Exploration had them all on edge, and now they had even more reason to be, given that an unknown force was running around on the loose and had the ability to injure them. But now, it was almost amusing how the silence was interrupted by two individuals who were both grouchily grumbling about completely different things, despite walking together up the stairs.

Isogu was muttering about how his shoulder hurt. Understandably, given he had ran full speed - which was a lot of speed! - into some creature that was also running at him. That’s a new one, he notes amidst his grunting. Walls, and people standing still, those were his specialties when it came to running into things. Monsters? Check that off the bucket list.

Yosuke, meanwhile, was grumbling about just wanting to go home. Also understandable. He had been made to stay late at school while working with these hooligans - Asaka aside - on this project, and while he really did like his friends, they were very, very tiring. He hadn’t slept well the night previous and was planning on convincing Ryuuichi to come over in a roundabout way so they could cuddle, but now they were both separated from each other  _ and  _ stuck investigating a gross old house that got his friends hurt. Yosuke was salty.

And so, they were grouchy together.

“You two already looked in those other two rooms?” Isogu asks after walking up the stairs.

“One of them is locked. The other is just a bedroom,” Yosuke explains. “That third door was the only one that was open when we went up here, but we just saved it for last. Do you want to see the first bedroom?”

“Uh, sure.” Isogu peeks into the bedroom, Yosuke holding his phone flashlight over his head so he can see inside. ...This, apparently, is a bad idea - as Isogu spots how dusty this entire room is. His eye twitches, and he darts into the room, and starts dusting everything off.

“...” Yosuke stares as he does this, almost impressed with just how quickly he was cleaning everything off with this one feather duster.

After a few minutes of Yosuke just enjoying the silence and Isogu violently cleaning the room, it is now no longer dusty. Isogu turns back to Yosuke, huffing a bit. “The room is now clean.”

“...Right. Thorough investigation.”

“Exactly!”

Yosuke steps back out of the room. “I can’t exactly complain about the peace and silence, but we should keep moving. Time for that third room?”

“Right…” Isogu groans slightly, walking out of the room as well. “Let’s just get this shit over with.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Yosuke says bluntly. Adjusting his gloves, he walks over to the open door swiftly, and Isogu quickly follows.

The door is all the way open, and inside is… yet another bedroom. Nearly identical to the first, just a different color scheme. But this time, it’s much more clear that something has been in here recently. Dust seems much less scarce, for one, but the bedsheets have been very disturbed, and claw marks have been scored across the sheets and pillows alike.

“...Well. My theory seems to have been correct.” Yosuke steps forward a bit so Isogu has room to enter, yet remains near the entrance of the room, being cautious.

Isogu steps into the room with a bit less care, eye immediately drawn to a nearby dusty dresser, which he starts angrily dusting off. “And you two left this room for last? Damn.”

Yosuke puts his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t the one picking where to go.”

“Oh, fair… that doesn’t surprise me actually, knowing Ryuu-”

“Exactly. Though, I do wonder…” Yosuke holds his chin. Thinking time.

Isogu continues dusting idly, though he does glance over at that. “Wonder what?”

“Just look.” Yosuke gestures with his other hand to the bed. “Does this look like the work of whatever creature you gracefully ran into?”

His head twists around, feather duster coming to a gentle stop. “...Uhh, I don’t guess so.”

“Right.” Yosuke almost looks amused at Isogu’s response. “The thing you ran into was tall, and wide - according to Asaka’s measurements, around my height, even. And Date mentioned that it’s footsteps were heavy - I don’t think that fits the image of smaller claw marks that we see here.”

“...Huh. Yeah, you’re right.” Isogu squints at the bed again. “...Actually, this looks almost familiar…”

“Familiar?” 

Suddenly, there’s a rustling noise from underneath the bed. Isogu takes a couple steps back, pocketing his feather duster in favor of putting a hand on his shoulder protectively in case something jumps at him. Yosuke reaches back into his coat and crouches slightly, on guard for anything.

...And then a blur of brown fur darts out from under the bed, and straight into a wall. Thunk. Isogu jumps a little bit, but Yosuke remains calm, looking closer at what it is. There, sitting dazed against the wall, is a large adult raccoon, skinny and with cotton from the bed still stuck between its paws.

“Rusty?!” Isogu exclaims.

“...No, Kita. It is just a wild raccoon.” Yosuke cringes a little, and slowly steps backwards, heading out of the room. “Come on, I’ve figured things out when it comes to the upstairs.”

Isogu looks back to the bed and the rest of the dusty room longingly, but the fact that Yosuke is the one holding up the phone flashlight means that he has to follow. So he does so, and both of them leave the room and take a good few steps back from the door, as to not disturb the raccoon. There are some scurrying noises that come from the room once they leave, but otherwise they look to be in the clear. “So what’d you figure out? Fast synopsis please.”

Yosuke sighed and adjusted his glove a little. “Earlier, a door slammed out of nowhere and startled me and Ryuuichi - we did not know what caused it, but it seems as if it was that raccoon, who is prone to running into things. You two must be kindred spirits.”

“Ohh, I see… Wait, hey!” Isogu pouts at that last part, crossing his arms. “Just because I’m a sprinter doesn’t mean that I’m like some mangy dirty raccoon.”

Yosuke smirks at him. “Maybe not the mangy dirty part, but you’re both still clumsy and run into walls all the time.” There’s a thunk from the raccoon’s bedroom. “Like that.”

Isogu’s pout continues. “You know I can’t help it. I gotta go fast.”

“Not so fast that you injure yourself and go through my Arnica montana supply even faster than you run.”

“America mom tan a what-”

“...Arnica montana. The scientific name for wolfsbane, and used in my anti-bruising gel.”

“Oh.” Isogu twirls a bit of his bangs around a finger. “Well I’m sorry. You know how it is.”

“Indeed I do. It’s fine.” He waves a gloved hand dismissively, still smirking a bit. “It’s my job to help, so I don’t mind.”

“...Thanks. And I’ll make sure to not fuck up my arm any more after this is all over and done with.”

“Speaking of…” Yosuke’s smirk fades as a bit of irritation enters his tone again. “We’ve done our part up here and figured out what happened. I would like to go back to my damn home tonight, so you think Isago will be satisfied?”

“Probably. Not like there’s anything else up here to find, right?”

Yosuke glances over to the locked door, but shrugs it off and nods. “Right.” He pauses, and then quirks an eyebrow at Isogu. “And just to confirm, the creature you ran into downstairs was not a small raccoon.”

“Nope. Big scary black demon monster.”

Yosuke stares at him for a second, before rolling his eye and sighing. “We’ll see what it is when Date goes to catch it or whatever he plans on doing.”

“Man, I hope Suna’s alright…” Isogu muses as he starts walking down the stairs.

Yosuke doesn’t comment - though he obviously is worried about Ryuuichi, and the others, as well - and simply follows him back down the stairs...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finding out what Suna and Haru, and Ryuuichi and Asaka find, shall be saved for the final chapter :3


	3. Unmasking the Villain

“S-Suna wait-” 

Mitsuharu scrambles after the tiny president, who is in the middle of strutting outside to the backyard. “No time for waiting!” she proclaims, heading out into the moonlight.

“Ugh…” He follows after her, for the first time emerging out into the back yard of this house. 

It looked about as abandoned as the rest of the house itself, barren of nearly everything that a healthy back yard should have. There is an overgrown and warped tree that towers above the yard itself, casting dark shadows over the entire yard in a very creepy way. The grass of the lawn looks fine, easy to walk on and everything, with a few dead patches of grass here and there. In fact, the grass looks a little too nice - as in, it’s too short to belong to an abandoned house such as this.

While Suna goes off to look along the house itself, Mitsuharu thinks out loud while examining the grass. “This looks cut… but not evenly.” He crouches down, running a hand along the grass. Some patches are overgrown, while others have been cut down short, but unevenly so. He’s seen this sort of thing before…

“Hey, Date. Come here a second,” Suna calls out from near the house, a bit of a ways away. Mitsuharu sighs and stands up, brushing off his gloves to walk over to Suna. She’s standing next to a wooden post of some kind, which has a metal ring attached to it. The post has been bent to the side slightly, and the metal of the ring looks worn, as if it was used for something a lot. Most interestingly, though, is a muddy rope that’s lying on the ground next to the post. “What do you think of this?”

“...Well, it’s a post with a rope next to it. The rope was probably tied to this ring,” Haru points to the metal, “and something was tied to the rope before. Something… something muddy.” His eyebrows furrow.

Suna looks up at him, crossing her arms with a serious look. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Mitsuharu nods. “It must be-”

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-”

Suna never gets to hear what Mitsuharu was thinking, as they are cut off by a familiar sounding shout. They both whirl around to look towards the fence…

“TOTAL KO COMIN’ TO DA RESCUE!” Kechibi’s voice rings out loudly, and the fence suddenly has Kechibi’s head popping up over it as he’s valiantly climbing over it. “NO MF-IN’ MONSTERS GONNA SCREW WI- uwaaa- AAAA-” ...and then he loses his balance as he goes over the top of the fence, and proceeds to face-plant onto the ground.

Mitsuharu looks at him incredulously, while Suna marches over to him. “Kechibi! You really did come.”

“Y-Yeah yeah, fo’ sure…! Can’t be skimpin’ out on helpin’ when you guys are out here bein’ haunted…” He wheezes, face still in the grass. “Jus- Jus’ gimme a sec tho-”

Moments later, a gate opens, a short ways away from where Kechibi climbed over the fence. Hanamaru steps through and walks over quickly, looking annoyed. “Kechi, I told you to stop yelling, it’s late.”

“Hanamaru!” Suna and Mitsuharu both exclaim, accompanied by a muffled “Sorry, ZuZu…” from the hypeman on the ground.

She sighs, and runs a hand through her hair before going to help Kechibi back to his feet. Kechibi smiles sheepishly and brushes off the dirt from the front of his hoodie. “Anyway… hey, you two,” she greets.

“Yeah uh, wassup. You two bros good?”

Suna nods. “We just split up to keep investigating.”

“We were looking around out here, while the other four - brother, Asa, Isogu, and Yosuke - are in the house.”

“Aw hell, sounds rad-”

“What?” Kechibi is cut off by Hanamaru squinting at the two of them. “Have you guys been splitting up this entire time? In an abandoned house?”

“Yeah, of course,” Suna answers confidently, while Mitsuharu makes a bit of a face. “There was a lot of ground to cover, so splitting up into couples at first, and then pairs like this, was a good idea.”

“...That doesn’t sound like a good idea at all…” Hanamaru muses.

“Well no one stopped me.”

“Ryuuichi tried to-” Mitsuharu interjects.

“Oh is that what Ryuu meant when he was talkin’ about the-”

Hanamaru casually places a finger over Kechibi’s lips, knowing he was about to blab about Ryuuichi’s ‘bad decisions’ line. “It’s a good idea at first, I guess… but isn’t there a monster or whatever in the house? And you two are out here and won’t be able to help?”

Mitsuharu nods frantically, but Suna shakes her head. “They are capable of taking care of themselves. They’re in good teams! I made sure of that when I assigned them.”

“...” Hanamaru sighs. “Okay… I still think we should go inside, but they’ll be okay for a few minutes while you catch us up on what happened.”

“Mmh mph mmmmh-” Hanamaru removes her finger from Kechibi’s lips. “Hahh! I was sayin’, a recap would be nice from you guys’ P-O-V. Ryuu was freakin’ the hell out in ma DMs so I dunno how much was true n’ all.”

“Of course he was…” Mitsuharu sighs with a smile, and quickly gives a recap of their actions from the night, from his point of view. Suna chimed in when it came to the monster attack, getting Hanamaru and Kechibi to stare at them in bewilderment all the way until they finished talking. “And now we’re out here, looking for clues on what this monster actually is. Got all that?”

Hanamaru pulls at the sleeves of her cardigan a bit nervously, but nods. “That does sound scary… but I’m glad Isogu is okay.”

Meanwhile, Kechibi is still shellshocked that Ryuuichi wasn’t kidding when he was freaking out, so he’s just got his jaw hanging open. “Bruh…”

“Yes, yes.” Suna nods. “Though, as of right now, I believe our investigation is finished out here?”

Mitsuharu opens his mouth to respond…

...and then they hear loud, thunderous thudding from within the house.

* * *

Ryuuichi and Asaka quietly move through the house, carefully moving around the furniture and towards the back room of the house once more. Ryuuichi glances around curiously, since this is his first time looking around here, while Asaka just quietly leads the way over. Asaka may be a slight bit on edge, considering she very much doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of what happened to Isogu, but at least she’s calmer than Ryuuichi. 

Ryuuichi is doing his damnedest to stay calm and collected, and he certainly looks like it externally, save for the fact that he’s more tense than usual. But internally, he is freaking out just as much as he was over text with Kechibi. Mostly because he doesn’t know what this monster is, and not knowing what will happen is torture, but he’s also scared of getting hurt, or any of his friends getting hurt- Yosuke especially so, but even Isogu getting hurt shook him up.

Asaka eyes him worriedly, watching as his gaze darts around the room at the back of the house. She starts to say something, but he spots her looking at him, and he takes a deep breath...

“Soooooo do you think it’ll be like, a real estate agent?” he asks cheerfully.

Asaka blinks. “What.”

“You know, a real estate agent in disguise! They want the property all to themselves, so they have to scare away the pesky teenagers that are breaking in.”

“Oh. You mean like in Scooby-Doo…”

“Yeah! This seems like a Space Kook situation to me. Minus the whole, weird yodel laugh and the alien disguise.”

“...Which one was the bank president that was embezzling money…?”

“Oh, the Creeper?”

Asaka nods. “Perhaps this property currently belongs to a bank.”

“Ooh, maybe…” Ryuuichi looks almost excited about it now, rubbing his hands together a little. “Or maybe there’s a hidden coin here that leads to a treasure!”

“Do you mean to say that this monster is like the Mummy of Ankha?”

“Maybeee.”

“But, the appearance of whatever it was… it was more like the Black Knight, I think.”

“Hm?”

“It was tall, and all black, yes…? And when Isogu ran into it, he was the one who got hurt, which would imply that whatever it is, it is something hard, like metal.”

“Ooooh… so that would be uh, a museum curator.”

Asaka adjusts her skirt a little bit, smoothing it out as she thinks. “Hmm… real estate agent seems more likely to me. If it is a person at all.”

“...Haha, good one Asaka!” He giggles. “Of course it’s a person! It’s not a real monster or demon or ghost or whatever.”

“...Right, yes.” She notices the way that he fidgets a little more as he speaks. She’s gotten way too used to looking for the very subtle but still visible tics that Ryuuichi has for when he’s acting, and since she can tell he’s on edge, she doesn’t press it.

“Anyway… you said it came from there?” Ryuuichi points to the closet where the door was now wide open.

Asaka nods silently. Ryuuichi moves forward with his phone, shining his flashlight into the room. Inside, it looks like it used to be a laundry room, or something of the sort. However, it looks even worse than the rest of the house. The walls are bent outwards, wood clearly having been under some serious damage. The floor itself seems very scuffed and beat up, and there’s something on the floorboards themselves that looks odd.

“Eh? The heck is that?” Ryuuichi quietly asks.

Asaka looks around briefly, before stepping into the room. There’s a slight smell to the room, one that you wouldn’t expect to find in a house - it smells like a barn, almost. Asaka slowly crouches down, and Ryuuichi reaches out with his phone so she can see better.

It’s… fur. Or short hair. It is black in color, and there’s a good amount of it, as well as it just being pretty dang muddy on the floor and on the hair.

“The monster has fur…?” Asaka mumbles to herself, holding it up so Ryuuichi can see.

“...That’s uh, weird. To say the least.”

“Maybe it is just-”

Suddenly, a faint thudding noise catches their attention, and then there’s an even louder thunk. Ryuuichi squeaks loudly and turns around quickly, while Asaka hurries to stand up and stand next to Ryuuichi. The noise seems to have come from the living room area…

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Asaka asks calmly. Without waiting for Ryuuichi to stop looking like a deer caught in headlights, she walks off into the living room.

“Wai- wait!! Asaka don’t leave me alone!” Ryuuichi squeaks, quickly following her.

They enter the room, and immediately see a dark, tall shape stumbling into the couch clumsily. There’s a small whine from the creature as it stumbles, moving much slower than it had before. Now that there is more light here, they can see more of a vague shape…

“What the-” Yosuke’s voice sounds from the entrance, getting the creature to whine again and stagger to the side slightly, startled. Isogu is standing next to him, wide eyed and very happy with staying back as he holds his shoulder with his opposite arm.

Asaka moves forward, squinting at the creature… somehow, no longer afraid. “Asaka be careful…!” Ryuuichi whispers after her. Like an idiot, he’s not holding his flashlight up so he can see the creature fully.

Mere moments later, the four from the backyard join them at the doorway, all peering in cautiously. “Asa…! Careful!” Mitsuharu says worriedly.

“Hush…” Asaka suddenly speaks up, coming up to the creature. It shakes slightly, a tremble overcoming it as it marches in place, huffing loudly like it did before. “Shh, shh, it is alright…” She holds her hands up, and the monster whines again.

“What in the fresh prince of hell…” Kechibi mutters.

Asaka reaches out very slowly… and at the tallest part of the creature, she carefully lays a hand on it. It whines once more, but it stills itself, huffing again and lowering its head.

“...Wait.” Yosuke raises his flashlight slowly, at the same time that Suna and Ryuuichi decide to raise theirs as well. 

The light slowly moves up… revealing large hooves, capable of making those thundering noises. Caked in mud, it has stiff, calloused, and skinny legs. Its body is long, and large. It looks strong and toned, and has short, black hair, as well as a long tail… and once the light reaches to where Asaka is holding onto its head gently, they all gasp in surprise.

The horrific monster that had hurt Isogu, and had been terrorizing them all, running rampant through this scary abandoned house.

It was a horse.

* * *

“Why is there a goddamn horse in the middle of an urban Tokyo neighborhood…” 

Hibiki grumbles slightly as he slowly but surely patches up the scrapes and wounds on the horse’s shoulders and neck. Kosei and Ethan had showed up as well, and Kosei was holding onto the horse’s head and grumbling to it to keep it calm, while Akira kept a hold on it’s body to make sure it didn’t move too much. 

“We’re not really sure, but, thank you Hibiki.” Hanamaru was helping Hibiki with patching up the horse, and moved her head so that he could see her lips move.

Hibiki nodded to her, having glanced up when he saw her head move. “No need to thank me.”

“You can thank me, though!” Ethan speaks triumphantly, patting the horse’s flank a little. “Uma-dono here is no small feat to catch and calm! Luckily with my honed skill, and Fukutai-dono’s wit, he is safe and secure.”

“I was the one who did all of the calming, dumbass… you just tried to grab it…” Kosei grumbles, gently rubbing the horse’s nose.

“I have encountered many a foe such as this in my day - I have even conquered a lion, once before! I do not need to lower my skill level for a mere Dosanko!”

“Not even a Dosanko…” Hibiki mutters.

“Unimportant, Madea-dono. All is equal in war.”

Hanamaru rolls her eyes. “Thank you, Ethan, and thank you too Kosei.”

“You are most welcome! Ahahaha!” Ethan laughed, while Kosei just nods, focusing on petting the horse gently.

A bit of a ways away, Asaka and Mitsuharu were standing near the front of the house, Mitsuharu just finishing up with a phone call. He sighs a little, and puts his phone into his pocket.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” he says, looking to Asaka now.

“That is good… and they are aware that a veterinarian is treating him already?”

“Yeah, I let them know. Once they heard it was me, and then that it was Hibiki, they were chill.” Mitsuharu puts his hands on his hips, looking proud of this.

“Very good.” Asaka casually hooks one of her arms around Mitsuharu’s. “We are going to stay until they come to pick him up, then?”

“Yep.” He smiles at her, tilting his head in her direction. “Are you doing okay?”

“Mhm…” She smiles back at him, softly. “Thank you for your help.”

“No no, don’t thank me. Thank  _ you  _ for helping to calm down the horse at first - we wouldn’t have found out what it was if it weren’t for you.”

“Hmm. Perhaps so. Still, it was not much…”

Mitsuharu turns his body a little, reluctantly unhooking Asaka’s arm in the process. He comes around to face in front of her, and gently places his hand on her cheek. Her eyes widen a little in confusion, but her face involuntarily reddens as she leans into his touch slightly. “You were great, Asa. Most importantly, though, thank you for being there for me.”

“H-Hmph… you do not need to thank me for that…”

“Oh, but I want to.” Mitsuharu ducks down and gives her a small kiss on the forehead, leaning back with a goofy smile.

“Hmph!” She reddens a little more, smiling up at him softly. 

“Yoooooo yo yo Akko I gotcha a-” Kechibi walks up, interrupting this while being completely oblivious. He’s holding a couple bottles of water, clearly bringing one to Asaka.

“...”

“...”

“...Aw shit- Um- Sorry! Imma…” Kechibi scampers off towards the horse group, heading over by Hanamaru instead.

“...Anyway.” Mitsuharu looks back at Asaka, smiling. “You know I love you~”

“......Mmh. I love you too…!” She replies, after looking after Kechibi unamusedly for interrupting. 

Mitsuharu giggles slightly, and just moves in to give her another kiss as she continues to make embarrassed noises.

* * *

“A horse. A  _ horse!  _ I was scared by a freaking horse…” Ryuuichi quietly whines as he walks along the sidewalk, away from the house. “I’m glad we can finally go home, but man…”

Yosuke looks slightly amused as he walks alongside him. “Well, it’s not like you knew it was a horse until it literally whinnied at you. I thought you would be more disappointed that it wasn’t… ah, what was it, a tax collector?”

“Real estate agent.”

“Yes, that.”

“And I wish it was! Poor horsie… a Scooby-Doo mystery would have been better.” Ryuuichi lowers his head as he walks along. “And I can’t just tell Keisuke all of this and end it with ‘and then we found out that it was a horse,’ he’ll literally never let me forget it.”

Yosuke snickers, and glances around at the streets - empty, since it’s late as hell - before casually putting his arm around Ryuuichi’s waist. “Well, you can worry about that in the morning. Ayasato doesn’t have to know that it wasn’t a real monster, hm?”

Ryuuichi smirks at him, scooting in closer so they’re walking closer together. “Ooh, good idea. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt me~”

“Exactly.” Yosuke tilts his head a little. “Just to check, you are feeling alright, yes? Not acting?”

Ryuuichi nods, tiredly. “I’m a bit more tired than I’m acting, but I’m alright now, at least.”

“Tired, hm? Need any help falling asleep?” he casually offers.

Ryuuichi gasps dramatically. “Are you inviting me over to cuddle?! How could I possibly say no?!”

Yosuke snorts a little bit, hugging him in closer as they walk along. “You’re such a dork. If you insist, though, I don’t mind if you come over.”

“Uh huh uh huh. I see what you’re doing.” He elbows him gently. “Tsun.”

“Whaaat? You  _ don’t  _ want to come over, then?”

“Mmmmnot what I said.”

Yosuke breaks off into snickering at that, and Ryuuichi soon joins him in light giggles as they both continue on home.

* * *

Isogu and Suna stand near the front gate of the house, Isogu slouched over tiredly while Suna seems to have endless energy still. She finishes directing the adults that showed up with the horse trailer, moving the horse into it with Hibiki, Ethan, and Kosei’s help of course. After this, she claps her hands together.

“Alright, great work everyone! Now that this is settled, you may all go home!”

Everyone nods, clearly tired at this hour. Ethan bows, and rolls away- or at least he does for a moment, before wincing and getting up because rolling on concrete is terrible. Hibiki rolls his eyes and follows Ethan, though he does have a bit of an amused smile as the two of them stagger off together. Kosei grumbles a thank you to the adults with the trailer, before following the other two boys, cracking his knuckles idly.

“See you Miss Isago! Oh, and Mister Kita too!” The driver of the truck waves to the two of them, before driving off. The horse lets out one last whinny as it is driven away… perhaps a thank you for the help? Who knows. They can’t speak horse.

Both Isogu and Suna wave, Isogu half-heartedly so. “Okay… now can we please hurry and go to sleep…?” he groans. “M’tired and my arm hurts…”

Suna looks over at him concernedly. “Oh, right… yes, of course we can leave now.”

“Thank youuuu.”

“No, thank you for sticking with me so late. The others already left already, and you didn’t have to stay…”

“...Well obviously I wanted to stay with you.” Isogu shrugs with one arm. “It’s no big deal.”

Suna beams at him, and scoots in to give him a hug. “You’re the best, you know that?”

Isogu hugs her back with one arm, chuckling. “I dunno, I think you’re the best. After all, you’re the one that found that light that got us in there anyway!”

Suna thinks for a moment, and then frowns. “H-Hey, yeah… there was that light in there.”

“...Yeah?”

“Well, the monster was a horse, and the other thing living upstairs was just a raccoon like you and Yosuke said, right?”

“Right.” Isogu doesn’t quite seem to get it yet.

“So… who turned on the light? Better yet, what even brought it there and plugged it in in the first place?”

There’s a sudden slamming noise that draws their attention. Their heads both whip around in unison to look back at the house, just barely catching sight of the front door slamming shut out of nowhere. A dark shadow moves behind the window, and there’s a chilling, slight chuckle that floats out to them faintly…

“...You know what, I think that’s enough for tonight,” Suna says shortly.

“Yep, agreed.” Isogu nods frantically.

They both disentangle from one another, but join hands, and hurriedly walk away from the house, leaving it be for who knows how much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Oh, and just to clarify. The tumblr post that I based this entire fic off of was “creepypasta where it becomes increasingly clear the monster is just a horse” by @spacehunter-m, and yes I really did go off on an entire three chapter fanfic from just that. Don't fucking judge me.


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